The KDE Windows team is delighted to announce the release of Windows packages from KDE Software Compilation 4.5.4. This release is doubly important because it returns the KDE Windows Initiative to the headlines after a lot of hard background work, and because it brings the some of the latest KDE software to Windows users.

Although still not considered stable and suitable for production work, this release brings to the table a lot of new improvements worth trying:

Support for two new compilers has also been added: mingw-w32, a more updated distribution of GCC for Windows provided by the mingw-w64 project, and vc100, the Microsoft compiler provided in Visual Studio 2010 Express Edition. These, in the future, will respectively replace mingw4 and vc90 (both of which are however supported in this release).

Aside from the software improvements mentioned above, the Windows team has worked under the hood to lower the barrier of contribution to development and community participation. This release itself is the result of a common release effort to fix the remaining compiling issues. The KDE on Windows team is quite proud of this common release effort and hopes to repeat it in the near future when Software Compilation 4.6 is released. We hope you'll "Join The (KDE Windows) Game" too!

Users can test this release by using the KDEWin Installer to try out all the software available. Included in this release are kdebase (both the applications and the workspace), kdeedu, kdegames, kdegraphics, kdemultimedia, kdenetwork, kdesdk, kdetoys, kdeutils, and several applications from extragear such as Amarok, digiKam and kipi-plugins, KMyMoney, Konversation, KMid, Kile and Quassel.

Be aware that some of the software may be unstable on Windows, but chances are good that you might find yourself quite comfortable in using some of these applications.

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Comments

The stuff about lowering the barrier to entry didn't sound that impressive, until I clicked on the link and read what it was. Unless I'm mistaken, this sounds like an almost instant, setup-for-you environment to build KDE platform / workspaces / apps on Windows... with almost no voodoo knowledge required?! If I'm not misunderstanding... then this is AWESOME! Major, major kudo's to all involved!

I notice Calligra isn't included in the list. Any pointers for people wanting to build / test Calligra on Windows?

Thanks for kicking some serious booty. Now hopefully I can help with testing like I've always wanted to! \o/

I have been chattering with some windows and koffice developers during last week at it sounded like they did have some build problems on windows but one of the koffice developer seems to be working at it. I dont know if it is solved by now

I had 4.4.x installed and it ran, i.e. programs started and (some) were usable and did what they were expected to do.

Now, after installing the 4.5.4 packages the installer wanted to start some configuration processes and all those programs failed to execute.

When after finishing the installtion wizzard I started a Program like KMahjong I received the message the msvcp100.dll was missing.

So I thought, I sould download and install it (vcredist_x86.exe, version 10.0.30319.1). Later I realized the the KdeWinInstaller had downloaded the same file called vcredist_x86-vc100.exe (same version). Did it install it also?

Anyway after reinstalling the version I downloaded, the KDE programs I start show up in the Task Manager for 1 second and vanish.

there are many options, but to make it simple, I'd go over web interface.
For example go to: http://jdownloader.org/knowledge/chat
and set your nickname, for channels replace #jdownloader with #kde-windows fill captcha and click connect, it should work, at least it did for me.
It's not the cleanest way, as they expect to connect to their channel, but in general it works.

After a late night session on #kde-windows where SaroEngels patiently answered my questions, it seems clear, that the problem was trying to install the new/updated packages, which were compiled with a different compiler than 4.4 was over my 4.4 installation.

Maybe another problem was that dbus-service.exe was running, but I'm not sure, if this was the original problem. It was only a small problem when deleting all the KDE directory for new installation. I had to kill the process manually, but I don't know if it was the 4.4 version running or already the 4.5.4 version (at least I had executed kbuildsycoca4.exe manually after installing the missing DLLs).

So, if you keep to the defaults (which seem to have changed in regards to the used compiler), better make a clean install of 4.5.4 (i.e. killing all running KDE processes and deleting all the KDE dir before installing).

Win 7 Ultimate x64 -> msvcp100.dll and msvcr100.dll are missing, I've downloaded them on http://www.dll-files.com but they aren't compatible ("entry point non found" error). Where can we find the right version for those 2 dll?